Washington: The United States stated that the pause on student visa interviews will end "sooner than later" and encouraged applicants to continue the application process while frequently checking for the resumption of regular services. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday ordered US missions around the world to pause student visa interviews to incorporate expanded scrutiny of the social media footprints of applicants.

 An early end to the pause, as indicated by US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce, would relieve hundreds of thousands of students headed for the US to pursue higher studies later in the year. India is the source country for the largest group of international students in the US and Bruce’s comments will be closely followed there.

“So right now, there might be some delay. And what I'm told to encourage people to do is to regularly check to see when those spaces open,” said Bruce at the daily news briefing. “So as opposed to, let me just say I would not be recommending that if this was going to be weeks or months. So if you're if you've applied for a visa and you want to please do so then there's no if you're not getting an appointment, just there's this online system you continually recheck to see when those spots might open.” “I can't tell you immediately after some, you know, undetermined moment of an action, but I can tell you that it's something that will happen, perhaps sooner than later,” she added.

The Trump administration has expanded scrutiny of foreign students in US colleges and universities in the wake of political unrest that swept through campuses against Israel’s invasion of Gaza in response to the terrorist strike by Hamas in 2023 October. The administration has targeted college authorities for not doing enough to prevent them and protect Jewish students and foreign students from participating in them. 

(IANS)